On one sunny Sunday morning peaceful Kretinga village’s roads got occupied by a hippie white bus. It parked near the old small building with wooden windows. 9 young people got out of the van and entered the orphanage. Surrounded by kids, they started to tell their stories about far away countries and unbelievable traditions.
Today was a good day
Lapiu Vaiku Namu Paramos Fondas is an orphanage with long and difficult history. We spent there 2 days – giving presentations, playing with the children and talking with the supervisors. Soon we realized that this place is extraordinary. It held a secret that could only be revealed by careful eyes and right questions. As we discovered throughout those days, the story behind it surely doesn’t come from a fairytale.
‘The building is 100 years old. Few decades ago there was no place to put orphans in this region, so time by time, one by one, they were brought here. And that’s how the sad story begins.’ – says Evelina, a woman who comes here daily to take care of the kids and to help with the challenges the orphanage is facing all the time. As she talks about the place, she puts all the emotions on the surface. All the concerns, worries and hopes are visible during her story about the place she is fiercely fighting for. ‘The biggest problem is this building of course, because soon its conditions won’t allow living here normally. We are doing anything we can but without any help from the moutside world we won’t manage to succeed and the kids would have to spread to different orphanages. For us it would be a disaster and the worst nightmare. So this is my goal; this is why I’m here and I will fight for it until I die.’ – she ends up with laughter but we have no doubts she’s absolutely serious about it.
This is how we met and this is why the RoadTrip Lithuania project came here to spend some time with the kids. 2 days surely weren’t enough to change their lives but we did our best to at least provide some positive changes and bring something new during this short time spent together.
6 foreigners from all over the world…
‘So what do you know about Portugal?’ – asked Zé, unfolding his flag. At the beginning all the kids, squeezed on the couch, didn’t really seem interested by what we were telling them. The turning point happened when Rogelio gave them his big colorful sombrero to try on. Shiny eyes started to be reflect more interest, sad faces turned to be smiley again and we could breathe a sigh of relief that our attempts were not completely ineffective. ‘Now they didn’t react that much, but we will repeat all the presentations for them so they will remember it and they will start to ask questions.’ – says Evelina. She tries to teach the kids something about ‘the big world’ and to show them what’s behind Lithuania’s border. ‘We are trying to educate them; we’re inviting various people like you to make them meet others from different countries.’ – she adds.
I love the summertime!
But the activities with foreigners are only a brief and quick entertainment for the children from the orphanage. Usually they spent days at school, doing homework or playing with each others. But in order to make their time as fun and valuable as possible, the supervisors come up with different ideas. ‘Every Wednesday we have 2 ladies who come here and do yoga with the kids. They do it for free. We also have a painter lady, she comes and we do a painting therapy. One day there were bikers here and they took the kids on excursion around the village. The kids loved it!’ – says Evelina as she recalls the past situations. And the kids appreciate those efforts. Olivija and Jelena, who have been living here for few years, both agree that they love this place and they love their ‘housemothers’ who take care of them and with whom they have strong and good relations. ‘We really like the fact that Evelina pays a lot of attention to children's emotions. When she notices that something is wrong, she tries to do everything she can to cheer the child up. – they say, smiling at each other. ‘And even though sometimes she makes us nervous while making us do all the homework, now I consider her as my friend and as a person I can always talk to about anything. Now one of my dreams is to learn English, so she gave me the dictionary as a present and now every time when I am with her she speaks with me in English’ – adds Jelena as she shows us a huge heavy dictionary to prove her words.
The relationships between the housemothers and the kids were something we discovered from the very beginning. This unique bond they have with each other comes from a very strong focus from the supervisors’ side to create and keep the ‘family atmosphere’ in the house. Still, the orphanage should be just a stop for them and none of the children consider this place as the true home. Evelina is completely aware of that. ‘It’s kind of a home for them, but they don’t feel it and they would never call it a home. I don’t know how to change it or if we even have to change it. But still, we’re trying to keep the tradition that every time we see each other we hug and kiss. And once I saw that if I’m not reminding them of doing this, they forget about it. So I told them: ‘I need more attention, why are you not hugging me?’ After this I disappeared for 2 weeks and when I came back they all jumped at me, hugged and gave me chocolates’ – she recalls as if it was yesterday.
I just don’t want winter to come…
Unfortunately, dedicated supervisors and nice children are not able to do miracles and go back in time when their house was new. 100-years-old building with poor electricity installation, leaking windows, 2 showers and 1 toilet is not enough for 50 kids to live and develop normally. The condition of the Lapiu Vaiku Namu Paramos Fondas house cries for help and desperately needs to be put down and renovated from the ground.
That’s why Evelina and the director of the place applied for a project to get funds from the European Union which will help them to solve this burning problem. Still, it’s not certain that they will get it. ‘We are waiting till September until they will make a decision and tell us what will happen next. If everything goes according to the plan, we can start to bring it down from January. I will do anything I can to achieve this goal, cause I don’t see any other option. I really believe that this is the best place for them to be here. Because if we will move them to another environment they will be psychologically broken and not only will we have to renovate the building but also we would have to fix the kids too.’ – Evelina explaines.
The drastic condition of the building is something which the children discover and worry about too. Olivija and Jelena kept on repeating that they really love this place and they cannot imagine being separated from the housemothers and other friends. ‘It has become our true home’ – they say. ‘That is why every time somebody starts to talk about the dormitory, its desperate need to be rebuilt and the low possibility that it can happen, every each of us gets sad and almost starts to cry. We are used to each other, we are like one big family and, if nothing is done with the dormitory, we will all have to split and go to different places.’ – and the tears start to show up in their eyes as they imagine the situation of being all split up.
‘We don’t need anything with golden handles’ – Evelina completes with passion. ‘No, we just want to them make feel like home. I’m dreaming of a state when each one of them has their own corner. Now they don’t have it at all – they don’t even have a normal shower or a toilet! They need to hide their personal things; they don’t have any privacy at all – anything which supposed to be on daily basis. They just don’t have it’ – she repeats.
Luckily, in this challenging situation not everything is doomed. There are many people fighting for this good cause, starting with the staff of the orphanage and passionately persistent Evelina, ending with many other friends and people from the village who collect money for the most urgent needs. But one person stands out in terms of the amount of help given to the orphanage. Evelina smiles as she talks about him, her voice starts to get soft again: ‘He is a 70-years-old Englishman and he has been helping those kids for more than 40 years. He’s a foreigner but still he comes here daily. He knows each one of them by name; he takes them to his house and let them work there. He also gathers money to renovate the building and he believes that one day the building will be renovated. He is my ideal angel.’
David himself doesn’t consider himself as an angel though. He took us on a small trip around his possession; told a story about this place, interleaved with occasional jokes and anecdotes. At first he may seem as a regular English gentleman in his 70s, strolling on the field with a dog on his side and a straw hat on his head. But when you actually get to talk with him, he reveals all the outstanding personality and incredibly fascinating life. And why he has been helping the orphanage so much for so many years? ‘I think that we all should feel the responsibility towards other people. These are lovely children, put in a situation where none of this was their fault, and we just need to do our best to look after them, tell them what is right and wrong – and love them. That’s what we do.’
This is my place and they are my family
Because this is not ‘just’ a roof. Everything what’s below it – the amazing relationships between them, the nice and open kids and the dedicated supervisors who know exactly how to raise them up and prepare for the adult life – is on its right place. And the impact of this good upbringing seems quite enormous. Both Jelena and Olivija declare that they would like to be like their housemothsers when they will grow up. ‘I would like to adopt a child and to make his life better than mine was.’ – says Jelena and Olivija completes: ‘Me too, I want to share my love with others and to make some other person happy’.
Helping, teaching, loving – this is what all those people, with Evelina and David in the front line, have been doing for many years. Still, the condition of the building is getting worse and worse every day and without an urgent help the future surely doesn’t look colorful. So hopefully, one day their dream will come true and they will have their ideal home. Evelina’s eyes lights up when she talks about this place in 5 years time. ‘It will all look beautiful and everything will be new and renovated. I will just sit there on the ground, relaxing, and the kids will be playing outside. Some of them will just have to come here occasionally, because they will be with their proper families. You will also come back here to do your presentations again! It will all be all right.’
On one sunny Sunday afternoon peaceful Kretinga village’s roads got occupied by a hippie white bus. It left the old small building with wooden windows. 9 young people sitting in the bus started a passionate discussion on what they’ve just seen and heard. Surrounded by the impressions of the place, they started to share the impact they’ve just experienced.
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